Ana Caro's El conde Partinuplés and Calderón's La vida es sueño: Protofeminism and Heuristic Imitation

This essay argues that Ana Caro appropriates and rewrites elements from La vida es sueño in El conde Partinuplés in order to engage in a protofeminist dialogue with the earlier play. Caro departs from her chivalric sources for Partinuplés and creates obvious parallels with Calderón's play, utilizing the intertextual practice that Thomas M. Greene has termed "heuristic imitation," in which a text calls attention to its relationship with a predecessor for the purpose of also calling attention to deliberate distances established between the two. In El conde Partinuplés, Caro includes numerous plot devices from La vida es sueño, including the catalytic paternal horoscope, the palace trial undergone and failed by the male protagonist, the dangers of war on a national scale, and the various characters' ultimate fates. In every case, though, she reworks these devices to contradict the patriarchal ideologies that shape Calderón's play. In opposition to this now-canonical work and its philosophical underpinnings, El conde Partinuplés asserts values associated by feminist thinkers with women's perspectives and beliefs. (CBW)